Eperformance: Enterprise-Class CRM Accelerators

In today’s rapidly changing business environment, retaining customers and expanding business is paramount. The situation is no different for the public sector, where various agencies are tapping into the latest technological evolution for a better customer relation, gain visibility and accountability of the constituent’s demands and improve their citizen service, such as grants and case management. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools are at the forefront in empowering government agencies to implement game changing new policies and provide better service delivery. However, a key challenge persists in developing in-house capability for the effective deployment of CRM and xRM applications across the enterprise, considering factors such as cloud vs. on premise, multi-tenant vs single tenant to architect CRM solutions on an enterprise scale. “In such a scenario, the public sector agencies must implement an enterprise strategy and architecture while implementing CRM across the organization,” reveals Eric Alain, CEO and President, Eperformance. Based in Ottawa, Canada, Eperformance is an able torchbearer that helps public sector organizations specialize in web-centric applications for electronic service delivery. The company views CRM/xRM as a new paradigm in automation to assist organizations rapidly automate business processes to reduce administrative burden. Eperformance aids government agencies to design and deploy enterprise solutions that combine the pervasiveness of the internet with the power of the intranet and key software applications within the organization.

Founded in 2000, Eperformance was conceptualized to develop advanced electronic service delivery solutions for the public sector in response to a demand for online access to government services. The company offers its solutions on the Microsoft cloud and assists clients in determining the best approach based on the assessment of their requirements, business architecture, and IM/IT environment. “Our initial foray into this space focused on the automation of government grant programs which typically represents 50 percent of the expenditure in government agencies,” says Alain. The company offers advanced series of solution accelerators that transform Microsoft Dynamics CRM into public sector business solutions for grant management, contract management and case management.

Eperformance is a Microsoft Certified Partner with a team of Microsoft Certified Professionals delivering feature rich, scalable government online solutions that can be integrated smoothly, in stages, and address specific requirements and pain points. Explaining further on the partnership with Microsoft, Alain says, “An early adopter of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Eperformance was invited by Microsoft to a technology “bake-off” with one of its clients, the National Science and Engineering research Council (NSERC), a large granting organization.” “Microsoft was aware of our expertise internationally, in the automation of government granting organizations, and wanted us to assist them in presenting Dynamics CRM as a foundation tool for grants management.”

Eperformance automated the NSERC grant program within four weeks in a competition against other technology tools. This helped Dynamics CRM win the competition, and the client was blown away by how CRM rose to the task. This success spurred a mutually beneficial relationship with Microsoft to become a lead CRM partner and promote CRM in the public sector, which was previously seen as a tool for the private sector.

Accelerators for the Public Sector

Eperformance offers three advanced series of solution accelerators—iGrant, iContract, and iCase to meet the increasing pressure of improving services of the public sector. iGrant is an advanced xRM accelerator that enhances Microsoft Dynamics CRM to include a rich set of pre-built grant and contributions management functionality to support government case management practices in program delivery. It can also be configured to support unique funding processes, business rules checklists, approval authorities, on a program-byprogram basis, and maintains auditable, time-stamped records of actions and decisions taken. “iGrant provides the capability for the internal review, evaluation and approval of application submissions, and can manage the sequence of work activities and decision steps throughout the program delivery lifecycle,” says Alain.

Our global methodologies provide rigorous processes and best practice templates and tools which can be tailored to help support our clients program’s specific needs

An advanced accelerator that upgrades the Microsoft Dynamics CRM is Eperformance’s iContract that possesses the capability for creating and managing contract case files. With this solution in place, information associated with contracts can be electronically filed and retrieved through an intuitive and user friendly interface. With iContract, contracting public sector organizations can implement activities and controls to support standard contracting models including process design from repeatable contracting models, centralized contract repository, and contract clause and policy library. iContract possesses client engagement features that track information and activities related to companies and contacts, including the ability to view the history of all contracts associated with an individual company. Further, the solution also offers an agreement management feature that maintains all relevant information for each contract including associated documents, payment history, and much more. “A robust monitoring feature provides the ability to automatically track activity during the contract development phase including bring forward dates, scheduled events, threshold alerts, and other related monitoring functions,” says Alain.

Further, iCase transforms the powerful capabilities of MS Dynamics CRM to support the requirements of case management automation in Government services. The solution supports the end-to end management of automated case files from initiation through resolution, to closure and can be further configured to support line-of-business specific process such as case management and investigation.

The Key to Success

Eperformance has invested millions of dollars to develop eServices extension to CRM with the ability to configure and deploy sophisticated submission forms rapidly while maintaining compliance with government regulations for accessibility, privacy, and security. “At Eperformance, we have heavily invested in a CRM software lab and CRM related product research and development. This capability keeps our solution offerings on the forefront of our target markets and allows us to continually improve our position in the market, and further, raise the CRM skill levels of our staff,” says Alain.

The company has recently established a training academy focused on developing and delivering training of CRM practices in the public sector. “Our facilitated training courses promote the development of our CRM specialists, as centers of competence, in new and developing areas of CRM,” says Alain. “Our global methodologies provide rigorous processes and best practice templates and tools which can be tailored to help support our clients program’s specific needs,” he adds.

Further, Eperformance has partnered with PriceWaterhouseCoopers on an innovative multi-million dollar project to develop an Air Safety Management xRM solution based on CRM. “The solution is being developed for NAV CANADA, one of the world’s leading air navigation services companies. This advanced and innovative safety management solution will monitor air safety for over 12 million aircraft movements a year in over 18 million square kilometers of airspace the world’s second-largest airspace by traffic volume,” concludes Alain.